In recent years, data processing technology has experienced rapid advances in systems wherein image data are transferred, stored or reproduced on a CRT in the form of electrical signals. These advances have increased the need for providing hard copy from these image data. Thus, various hard copying techniques have been proposed in this field of endeavor.
Most of these hard copying techniques serve to provide hard copies by converting image or letter data from electrical signals to intensity of heat or light or amount of dyes. The hard copying materials used in these hard copying techniques include those with use of silver halide and also those without use of silver halide. In respect to picture quality, those using silver halide are superior. Examples of hard copying materials or systems which provide hard copies with high picture quality include Pictrography (available from Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd.), which employs a silver halide heat developable dye diffusion process and an LED scanning exposure process, and Fuji Photo ID Card System (available from Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd.), which employs a color paper in combination with a CRT scanning exposure process.
Thus, as a process for obtaining hard copies from electrical signals, a conventional scanning exposure process comprises sequentially retrieving image date to be used for exposure. This exposure process is very advantageous in that when letter data are printed, then their colors, sizes and locations can be independently predetermined in connection with output from computers. However, the exposure to image data requires elaborate apparatus for reading, storing and outputting image data. Furthermore, images thus obtained exhibit a poor picture quality as compared to image formed on currently available light-sensitive materials such as color negative films comprising silver halide and color papers comprising silver halide. Therefore, this conventional exposure technique is not ordinarily used to provide hard copy from image data.
Accordingly, in the case of data consisting of images and letters, e.g., a post card, the images are conventionally printed on a color paper from a color negative film while letters are contact-printed on the color paper through a lithographic plate simultaneously with the images, thereby obtaining both image and letter data at the same time.
Therefore, it has been highly desireable to provide a system which can make the best combined use of the silver halide photographic material printing process and the electrical signal scanning exposure process such that image data are printed through high quality pictures on a silver halide photographic material, such as color negative films and color reversal films, while letter data or illustration data can be easily edited by computers, and electrically outputted and printed.